1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to monitoring performance of a data processing system, and in particular to an improved method and apparatus for monitoring performance of a data processing system via a result size.
2. Background Art
In analyzing and enhancing performance of a data processing system and the applications executing within the data processing system, it is helpful to know which software modules within a data processing system are using system resources. Effective management and enhancement of data processing systems requires knowing how and when various system resources are being used. Performance tools are used to monitor and examine a data processing system to determine resource consumption as various pieces of software are executing within the data processing system. For example, a performance tool may identify the most frequently executed modules and instructions in a data processing system, or may identify those modules which allocate the largest amount of memory or perform the most I/O requests.
A particular challenge in software troubleshooting is the periodic slowdown caused by accesses to a database. Because of the periodic nature of the problem, it is often difficult to determine the cause of the slowdown. There are prior art tools that provide information to a system analyst concerning a software operation and access to the database. One known software trace tool is a database monitor, which when activated keeps track of database events as they occur. This tool records data such as shown in FIG. 2 and described further below. Another known tool is an applications server log that records information about application threads being served by the applications server. This tool records data such as shown in FIG. 3 and described further below. These prior art tools can help a system analyst troubleshoot the cause of a periodic slowdown, but by themselves have severe limitations in helping the analyst isolate a periodic slowdown.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method and apparatus for monitoring data processing systems and the applications executing within the data processing systems as they access databases. Without a way to analyze and improve system performance, the computer industry will continue to suffer from excessive costs due to poor computer system performance.